Recently my players have all gotten some tad bits of land. I took a page out of the book of the warlord and saw that many times Uther would pick 1-2 hamlets to support his calvarymen.

My players have been using their spoils from war to build improvements to their manors. One build a jousting Tilt. He has generously invited other players to come forth and use it during the winter phases. While I understand that the players want a check to joust, I'm having trouble figuring out their time management.

We are in the GPC and between serving garrison duty for 3 months, traveling to easter royal court, going to war against the Saxons with uther's army, traveling to salisbury court to serve as advisors when called, having a summer adventure, I just don't see where they can spend all that much time on their friends lands as well as their own.

So the question is as follows: How much time (in months) would you say you have to spend on someones manor to benefit from the improvements built there (if you have permission to access it and it makes sense). Also how much does it cost the host to guest you properly during your stay. I see where keeping a knight and squire without horses can be 2L a year. 4L with horses. So if you wanted to host your 3 friends
(their squires and their horses) for the winter (4 months), it'll cost you 4L. Now if the friends are household knights, the lord will have to give them special permission to be away from him that long (their job is to be bodyguard and for him to have 24/7 access to them), but considering he would be saving on their upkeep I could see him allowing it every now and again. Especially if one of them was getting married etc. Would a landed knight who has a manor save L in food if he spent all winter on someone else's lands? (For ease of management I had any landed knight simply state they would be sending a cart of hay and cattle to their friends to re-supply his stores for hosting him all winter).

Honestly, I wouldn't bother with the bookkeeping, assuming that they are all in the same county rather than scattered around Britain. Household knights would likely to be training with their Lord anyway, and get those Lance (& Horsemanship) checkmark(s) anyway. Trust me, the Lord will want his household knights to keep in practice, and he certainly would have the facilities for it, too. As for landed knights, they can easily enough 'repay' the hospitality. It is just one experience check. Don't sweat the little things. Especially since the player knights can easily get half a dozen checks if they really start building improvements. It is simply not worth it to begrudge them this one experience check and make it difficult; chances are that they have already earned the check during the adventure/battle of the year. Now, things are different if they have to travel days if not weeks. At that point, it is so not worth it. There are plenty of other opportunities (see the beginning about their own Lord) much closer by. If they all live close by, then training together is a good team-building exercise, explaining why they develop Loyalty (Group) and get sent to do stuff (adventures) as a group. This is a good thing, from my GameMaster perspective.

Also, players like to have experience checks. Be generous. It won't get out of hand: once the skills hit 18, they will need an average of 10 years to increase by one even if they get a check each year. In the meantime, it takes just 1 yearly training to get that +1. So again, don't worry about it.

In our campaign, I generally tally up the checks that the player knights have gained during the year, and then award 1-3 additional skill checks (and usually one trait or passion), to reflect what they are doing with their 'free time'. This is instead of rolling for random solos. It works very well, and gives the players some control over which direction they wish to grow the character.